The New York Times columnist Mauren Dowd describes President Obama’s effort to reconnect with Republicans at this link. This is a form of the “Knowledge Flow Session” I write about in my book in chapters 11 and 12. You can read about it at this link.
Monthly Archives: January 2010
Leadership Wisdom: Howard Behar
One of my favorite business books is Howard Behar’s It’s Not About the Coffee. Behar is the former president of Starbucks International and Starbucks North America. On March 24-25 I’ll be moderating a session at the Conference Board’s Customer Experience Management Conference in New York City where Howard will be speaking. You can learn more about the conference at this link. And be sure to check out the above webcast I hosted with Howard.
Employee Engagement: Why Now, More Than Ever
Reading this article in The New York Times about the mood in New Orleans now that its football team, the Saints, is in the Super Bowl, got me thinking about employee engagement. The article identifies a factor that has boosted the morale of New Orleans residents. It is a factor that has a positive impact on employee morale, too. What is it?
Jobs, Apple: What’s at their Core?
LiveMint/The Wall Street Journal in India asked me to comment on why Steve Jobs and Apple have been so successful. In an interview entitled “‘Think Different’ is What Makes Apple Stand Out,” I shared that it is more than the beauty and functional excellence of Apple’s products that make the firm so successful. Apple’s inspiring identity plays an important role too. (Above is a video of the original “Think Different” television ad.)
Employee Engagement Conversation w/Michael Bungay Stanier
It was my good fortune to be a guest on Michael Bungay Stanier’s Great Work podcast interviews series to discuss employee engagement and leadership. Michael is the founder and Senior Partner of Box of Crayons, a firm that provides coaching and training services to organizations. He authored the book Do More Great Work and writes the Great Work blog. I find Michael so knowledgeable and interesting. He was the 2006 Canadian Coach of the Year, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, holds a Masters of Philosophy from Oxford, and law and arts degrees with highest honors from the Australian National University. You can listen to our conversation at this link.
Cancer Changed Me In Unexpected Ways
Six years ago this month, while standing in a hospital waiting room with my mother-in-law and my two young daughters nearby, I began having a hard time breathing. My wife Katie’s surgery for ovarian cancer had gone beyond three hours. I knew that normally it shouldn’t have taken that long and I started imagining something had gone wrong. Before too long, the surgeon entered the waiting room and walked toward me. “Katie has ovarian cancer and it has spread. I’m sorry,” he told me. Today, six years later, Katie is cancer free and her doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center told us they believe it is highly unlikely that she would have a recurrence at this point.
That season in our lives changed me in expected and unexpected ways, including how I view organizations and the workplace. I wrote an essay about it entitled Alone No Longer that was published as an Amazon Short. Each year around the anniversary of Katie’s surgery, I offer a free download of Alone No Longer at this link. I hope you’ll take the time to download and read it, then reflect on its application to your life. The essay has been especially popular with people who want to know how they can help family members or friends with a serious illness. If you know of someone who might benefit from reading Alone No Longer, please pass it along with my best wishes.
Invictus: The Rest of the Story
Hardwiring Talent Management
One way to think of organizations is that they are a bundle of resources, processes and values (referred to as the RPV framework). Leaders need to actively manage all three elements of the RPV mix. In this post I would like to zero in on processes. Processes are to organizations what hardwiring is to the human brain: it allows the organization (or organism) to complete routine tasks with minimal expenditure of energy and resources while bringing consistency and proven reliability to execution.
Two processes I recently learned about that support talent management are One Page Talent Management and Online Mentoring.
Knowledge Flow Attracts, Engages and Retains Talent
Here is a link to Part III of a series of blog posts I wrote for the Human Capital Institute’s Talent Economy Blog. This post is on the benefit of increasing knowledge flow in an organization to attract, engage and retain talent.
New From the Employee Engagement Network
For those of you who really like to cut to the chase, here’s a pdf of one sentence employee engagement advice from some of the Employee Engagement Network’s members. Many thanks to Employee Engagement Network founder David Zinger for organizing this.